Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Lemon Drops
Ingredients
Directions
Make the candy
Boil sugar and water until brittle when dropped in cold water.
Pour the mixture onto buttered plates.
Flavor and shape
Once cool, sprinkle with tartaric acid.
Mold the mixture until thoroughly mixed.
Add lemon extract to taste.
Cut into desired shapes.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Forms the candy's glassy, brittle structure as it cooks and then sets.
- Tartaric acid
- Adds a sharp, sour tang that balances the sweetness of the sugar.
- Lemon extract
- Adds the lemon aroma and flavor.
The step that matters
Boiling the sugar and water until brittle. Sugar must reach a high enough temperature to set hard when cooled. Undercooked sugar stays soft and sticky, while overcooked sugar darkens and turns bitter. The cold-water test shows when it is ready.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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